Caitrin Lynch and I try very gently to talk about why automation needs to be thought about very carefully before adopting it as a solution for any social dilemma: cacm.acm.org/opinion/an-a...

bsky.app/profile/jben...

US issues broad order to consulates to vet student visas over ‘terrorist activity’ State department shares new standard for denials based on social media posts, financial donations and memberships

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Book forum : The Pandemic Workplace

SAW's Exertions published a discussion of my recent book a few days ago that the indomitable Carrie Lane organized. There is no better gift to give an author then this kind of generous engagement: saw.americananthro.org/book-forum--...

If this is something the community needs, I am happy to host it on the CaMP anthropology blog (of course, it would have to be blogposts).

Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He’s ‘Saving His Country’ President Trump shared a quotation on social media, making it clear it was one he wanted people to absorb: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/u...

Trump Suggests No Laws Are Broken if He’s ‘Saving His Country’ President Trump shared a quotation on social media, making it clear it was one he wanted people to absorb: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/u...

I keep thinking that Trump and Musk are changing what it means to be pro/life --- it is now profits over life

Opinion | Don’t Believe Him Look closely at the first two weeks of Donald Trump’s second term and you’ll see something very different than what he wants you to see.

The most hopeful take on why Trump's current actions show his weakness that I have seen yet: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/o...

What’s the Point of Trump’s War on D.E.I.? To distract from his larger plan to gut the federal government, the President has taken a relatively powerless program and turned it into an excuse for everything that goes wrong in the country.

I thought this was such a useful take on what DEI programs are actually doing at universities, and what it means to ban them: www.newyorker.com/news/fault-l...

Laboratories of Authoritarianism How undemocratic workplaces sowed the seeds of Trumpism

Just in time for the inauguration: newlinesmag.com/argument/lab...

I would happily be a guest speaker in your class if you wanted to add a bit of anthropological spice to such a great mix

Intellectual Freedom in All Workplaces BY ILANA GERSHON  Academic freedom sounds so academic—especially for employees frustrated at work because they are answering workplace surveys all the time, and yet somehow their insights about how…

I think faculty are thinking too small when we talk about academic freedom. Wwe should fight for intellectual freedom in all workplaces. Go big!
academeblog.org/2024/12/18/i...

I might teach Caitrin Lynch's short piece alongside Akrich's article: anthro-age.pitt.edu/ojs/anthro-a...

or maybe something from Caitrin's Retirement on the Line book -- aging and workplaces might be interesting

I have been wondering where all the claims of election fraud went. Why does fraud only exist when you lose?

Someone already mentioned it, but What's Now with Trevor Noah is pretty great. And I also like Jon Stewart's podcast

Ilana Gershon on her book, The Pandemic Workplace Interview by Bonnie Urciuoli Bonnie Urciuoli:  What arguments in your book seem relevant right after Trump’s victory on November 5th? Ilana Gershon: We just had an election that, for half the …

I thought maybe a different take on Trump's appeal might be interesting to read -- so just posted a discussion about my new book on the CaMP anthropology blog: campanthropology.org/2024/11/11/i...

bsky.app/profile/roxa...

That is so right! I even wrote an article about how it is a bullshit genre machine, really good at producing the bullshit genres that make so many of our jobs into bullshit jobs

For academics -- mid career fellowship: www.isrf.org/funding-oppo...

Our mouths are filled with other people's words. (and even this is a paraphrase of Bauman paraphrasing Bakhtin)

But do you think that our ideas are always also other people's ideas?

I do not create extra credit!
I do not create them on Canvas.
I do not create them in Kansas.
I do not create them here or there.
I do not create them anywhere.

I am almost finished reading contentious pandemic US school board meetings for an article. I finally came across an anti-masker mentioning Thomas Paine. So far, the historical figures anti-maskers mention have been: Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Nelson Mandela. I am so befuddled by this.

I am darkly fascinated by the ways in which people seem to long for a Protestant reformation in relationship to scientific expertise (scientists are very much treated as Catholic priests were during Reformation)

I am spending the break reading US school board meeting transcripts recorded during the pandemic, which means reading over and over again how people justify this.

But also -- blech!!! And on a Sunday!!!?!!

In these situations, I try to find anyone I know (a bit removed from the actual participants involved) for whom the academic system has been built, the most structurally privileged person I can find, and ask what would they do? I am so often surprised by the answers, invariably good tactics.

The Red State Brain Drain Isn’t Coming. It’s Happening Right Now. As conservative states wage total culture war, college-educated workers—physicians, teachers, professors, and more—are packing their bags.

“No one is teaching your kids to be gay,” a teacher named Alyssa Marano said at the meeting. “Sometimes, they just are gay. I have math to teach. I literally don’t have time to teach your kids to be gay.”
newrepublic.com/article/1768...